Freedom Day delay ‘will save thousands more lives’

THOUSANDS of Britons would die of Covid-19 this summer and an extra 40,000 patients would be admitted to hospital if the UK reopened fully on June 21, expert modelling showed last night.

Advisers serving on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) warned that the UK was facing a resurgence in cases and deaths – but the delay to Freedom Day could cut the number. They stressed that extending restrictions for a month would ‘reduce the pain’ and buy time for millions more adults to develop immunity, saving around ,000 lives.

Its modelling suggested that delaying freedom by a month would prevent around 40,000 hospital admissions. Boris Johnson told yesterday’s Downing Street press conference that the fourweek delay would ‘save thousands of lives that would otherwise be lost by vaccinating millions more people as fast as we can’.

Previous Sage estimates about the impact of lifting lockdown have turned out to be too pessimistic, leading it to be criticised for ‘scaremongering’. However,

the Government advisers insist the Indian variant – which is up to 80 per cent more infectious than the Kent strain – means a third wave of coronavirus is inevitable.

Sage sub-group SPI-M said: ‘In all scenarios modelled, even a short delay to the timing to Step 4 [of lifting lockdown] results in a significant drop in the number of people being admitted to hospital as more people are vaccinated and as the school summer holidays get closer.’

It added: ‘Most of the benefit comes from the first four weeks of delay.’ The experts estimated a four-week delay would halve the number of deaths and reduce overall Covid hospital cases in the next year by one third to around 0,000.

They added that the delay would cut pressure on the NHS during the peak of the third wave by 50 per cent from 2,850 hospital admissions a day to 1,420.

Even with the delay, scientists are expecting daily admissions to increase sharply and exceed 1,000 a day by the end of July.

Currently admissions are 187 a day, but they have risen by 61 per cent over the past week in the North West where the Indian variant has taken hold.

Ministers believe the rest of the country could follow this trajectory, which could ‘put unsustainable pressure on the NHS’.

Chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance told the Downing Street press conference the four-week delay would ‘reduce the pain’ of the summer wave and allow the UK to avoid another lockdown.

He added: ‘If you look at the increases we’re seeing now in hospitalisations... if we didn’t have the vaccination we’ve got, we would be looking at the question of lockdown. The four-week delay should reduce the peak by something between 30 and 50 per cent.’

He said that by July 1 all over-18s will have been vaccinated, most adults will have had both doses of the vaccine and the school summer holidays will also reduce the spread.